Flatpak

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Flatpaks are bundles which besides the program also contain all required libraries. Use cases:

• If your Linux distribution is too old to offer all required libraries but has Flatpak support, you can install a recent released version of GnuCash from the FlatHub repository.
• If a developer asks you to test a patch, you can use a nighly version from our Flatpak repository.

Known Issues

• To use smart cards, at least Flatpak 1.3.2 needs to be installed on your system. Complain against your distribution if they do not offer it.
• no direct report printing (printing to file works) and
• a potential bug that causes guile to attempt to recompile all scm sources:

  :
  ;;; note: source file /app/share/guile//2.2/ice-9/eval.scm
  ;;;       newer than compiled /app/lib/guile/2.2/ccache/ice-9/eval.go
  :
  

Workaround:

# --system install
cd /var/lib/flatpak/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash
# OR --user install
cd $HOME/.local/share/flatpak/app/org.gnucash.GnuCash

sudo find . -name '*.go' -exec touch '{}' ';'

Installation

Examples for Ubuntu or Debian (in Buster, Flatpak is already included, for Stretch and Jessie backports exist):

Hint

For other distributions replace apt* <command> by your preferred commandline software managment tool and its command, i.e.

zypper install flatpak

for many rpm based distributions.

Releases from flathub.org

You can have both the regular, currently GnuCash 5.10, and beta branches installed at the same time.

See also Flathub

Flathub version Gnucash 3.8 shipped with Aqbanking 6.1.0 which was almost suitable PSD2 using online banking with the FinTS/HBCI protocol. But newer versions still got more fixes.

For Stable Releases

# Install FlatPak (on debian based distributions, others have to replace 'apt-get install'):
sudo apt-get install flatpak

# Register FlatHub repository for a system app (available to all users):
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
# or only you:
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

# Install GnuCash ...
# for all users:
#  sudo is only needed for a --system install, if the user is not in the 'sudo' group
#  --system is the default if --user is not specified
sudo flatpak install --system flathub org.gnucash.GnuCash
# or only you:
flatpak install --user flathub org.gnucash.GnuCash

# Run GnuCash:
flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash

Tip

To get the most recent version, run each quarter year (see Release Schedule):

flatpak update

For Unstable (i.e., beta) Releases

Do the process for stable releases, but register, install, and run as follows.

# Register:
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
# Install
flatpak install --user flathub-beta org.gnucash.GnuCash
# Run
flatpak run --branch=beta org.gnucash.GnuCash

Test version from gnucash.org

Warning

Save your data before using test versions!

Often you can find test versions on the build-server. They come in two flavours:

Maint

Version 5.10 plus all recent bug fixes, but no new features: code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/maint/

Master

Version 5.10 plus new features, but bug fixes can be delayed a few days: code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/master/

Tip

The file names in these directories can be used in the example below after trimming the „gnucash-“ prefix and „.flatpakref“ suffix.

The current version contains Aqbanking 6.1.0 (PSD2 capable of online banking via FinTS/HBCI (german) protocol; date of this information: 2020-02-20).

sudo apt install flatpak  #install Flatpak
# register repositories:
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnucash https://code.gnucash.org/builds/flatpak/gnucash-nightlies.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --arch=x86_64 remote-ls gnucash  # show all packages
# output should be:
# org.gnucash.GnuCash
# org.gnucash.GnuCash.Debug
# org.gnucash.GnuCash.Locale
sudo flatpak --arch=x86_64 install gnucash org.gnucash.GnuCash//maint-C3.8b-163-g0e6c9e219-D3.8b-15-g0479ece  # <-- change version here!
flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash  # start program

Note

flatpak --arch=x86_64 is only required, if you have a 64-bit processor with a 32-bit OS.

Tips

Maintenance

You should — also if no new GnuCash version was announced — sometimes run

[sudo] flatpak update

to to look for updated components of your Flatpak environment. That might look like:

        ID                                    Zweig  Op  Remote   Download
 1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default   19.08  u   flathub   < 85,1 MB
 2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel  19.08  u   flathub    < 8,7 MB
 3.     org.gnome.Platform.Locale             3.34   u   flathub  < 322,2 MB (partial)
 4.     org.gnome.Platform                    3.34   u   flathub  < 320,4 MB
 5.     org.gnome.Sdk.Locale                  3.34   u   flathub  < 325,8 MB (partial)
 6.     org.gnome.Sdk                         3.34   u   flathub  < 663,9 MB

Proceed with these changes to the user installation? [Y/n]:

It is primarly important, if you reported a problem about which the Gnucash-Developers said, its cause lies not in Gnucash but one of the by Flatpak installed Gnome libraries. But also for security reasons you should keep your environment up to date.

To call command line tools like aqbanking-cli

flatpak run --command=sh org.gnucash.GnuCash

opens a shell inside the sandbox of GnuCash.

In case of trouble get the console output

flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash

or even better

flatpak run org.gnucash.GnuCash --logto stdout

The latter will print all logs to the console rather than to an inaccessible trace file.

Migration from normal package to flatpak (german)